The limits of self-parody.
By Jen | October 14, 2010
This is the “Memphis Gun Shirt.” I first saw it at Cooper-Young Festival a few years ago, and a couple of my friends own them because I guess they think it’s funny.
Me, I’m not so sure.
One of the things I love about Memphis is the survivalist attitude. This city catches a lot of bad breaks. High unemployment. Foreclosures. High crime rate. Blight. Corruption. Racism. A spot at the top of every “Worst” list imaginable. Yet the ability to enjoy life and do well for oneself amid all the challenges is a point of pride for Memphians. We see it as a hustle. I understand that’s what the message of this T-shirt is supposed to be, but most of the folks I see wearing it are so insulated from any of the real problems the image represents because, like me, they are young middle-class whites.
So how do you explain that so-called irony and that bootstraps attitude to an outsider who already views Memphis as a pit of despair? Seems the gun on your shirt isn’t doing much to help our reputation.
41 Comments
Lindsey on 10.14.2010 at 4:35 pm.
It is absolutely insane that you posted this today. Not two days ago I saw this shirt for the first time buried in the Flickr stream of the girl who’s friends with the person who made it. Or something.
Collective consciousness, dude!
Jen on 10.15.2010 at 10:09 am.
Also funny how mere hours later the “Most Dangerous City” story breaks. http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/oct/15/forbes-slams-memphis-02/?print=1
Dan on 10.18.2010 at 10:32 am.
these shirts are stupid. its one thing to have a band shirt to which one is promoting a band they like. these are just trendy shirts that “cool” kids buy to make it look like their “with it” and that they “get it”. bunch of punk ass hipsters is what they are.
George on 10.18.2010 at 10:34 am.
I am one of the two people behind this shirt. I feel that you do not understand the message of the shirt and would like for you to clarify what it means in your commentary, instead of saying that you know what it means. If you think its just some Caucasian appropriation of an African-American subculture, then you are most certainly wrong. I was always taught in school to “show my math”, so I await your calculations.
Jen on 10.18.2010 at 10:41 am.
George, I already included in my post the message I get from it:
If I’m misinterpreting, it seems the burden of proof would be on you, the creator of the shirt, not me.
Cameron on 10.18.2010 at 10:36 am.
That article makes no actual criticism. Who’s reputation? Yours? Take your “young middle-class white” ass back to olive-branch or wherever you pretend to be a Memphian via your laptop and get over yourself.
Cameron on 10.18.2010 at 10:37 am.
Of course she “moderates” comments.
Jen on 10.18.2010 at 10:44 am.
Cameron: It’s to prevent spam. If I really wanted to “moderate” I’d fix your grammar.
Kevin Lipe on 10.18.2010 at 10:46 am.
I’ve always liked this shirt, and at the same time it makes me cringe a little bit. I’ve always seen it as taking others’ view of Memphis and throwing it in their faces.
My girlfriend is from West Memphis, and in some of her teaching conferences in Jonesboro and Little Rock, you wouldn’t believe how many dumb white people are literally afraid to set foot in Memphis. This is a shirt I would wear around those people, just to make them uncomfortable.
…but I see your point.
Saturday night special on 10.18.2010 at 10:47 am.
Ohhhhhh!!! Stupid me. I get it. It’s for us white, East Memphis, ladies-in-Suburbans-with-Rangemaster-stickers to look hard and scare off the mean immarapeus. So obvs.
George–love to host a trunk show. Ring me!
Man What on 10.18.2010 at 10:48 am.
I blog about cats while I wear my Memphis Gun shirt. Does that make me a HIPSTER?
DonnieD on 10.18.2010 at 11:02 am.
I always saw the shirt as more of a protest against all the violence. Being close to the person who made them, i’d say that was right in the ball park. I’m 39yo born, and raised here in memphis.
I’m lower class, hard working, and not some trendy little white kid..Can find me in Nutbush.. on a quad core desktop that will eat your laptop for a snack.
I guess people really don’t understand do they!!
Joey on 10.18.2010 at 11:03 am.
I agree with Jen. And also you could easily change the name
from Memphis to Chicago or Detroit or any high crime urban area. And the image of a gun, while provocative is certainly not original. Yeah, gun = violence, we get it. I guess my point being, if you like Memphis I wouldn’t recommend wearing this shirt. ”Come to Memphis for the bbq, blues, and bullets.” Um, no.
Dan on 10.18.2010 at 11:05 am.
yes. ya damn hippy hipster. cats belong in the dumpster.
DonnieD on 10.18.2010 at 11:24 am.
Joey:And also you could easily change the name
from Memphis to Chicago or Detroit or any high crime urban area…
I would say maybe, now this is just a hunch. Because We live in Memphis, not Chicago or Detroit or any high crime urban area… The crime, and violence is here. It’s is as bad as you think (if not worse). An I honestly don’t see an end to it anytime soon. If anything it seems to be getting worse.
now this is just my observation.Being robbed at gun point twice will open your eye’s to how it really is out there..
Daniel on 10.18.2010 at 11:35 am.
A parody of violence is still just a parody. Would you be suggesting that people who don’t understand parody are reason enough for these shirts to be unsavory?
Jen on 10.18.2010 at 11:41 am.
Unsavory, no. Ineffective, yes.
George on 10.18.2010 at 12:00 pm.
It’s nice to know that some people are up in arms about a shirt that is over two years old. I guess there wasn’t a problem with them until the media, local and national, brought the amount of violence to “light”. And now that Memphis has been labeled, again as a violent place, there will be a flood of people that will attempt to downplay the problem by saying anything that draws attention to the violence, is part of the problem. The problem is we tend to sweep things that we don’t like under the rug and into the corners behind the couch so no one has to do anything about it. If its out of site, its out of mind. Well, that might work for dust, but not violence.
The problem with violence in Memphis is not a black or white thing, its a Memphis thing. Everyone in Memphis is subjected to this violence. People can take what they want from the shirt, but to say that its only a “white, middle-class” shirt is ridiculous. I think I’m going to need the “white, middle-class” comment defined because I am in no way middle-class. I’m white, and I’m not “hustling” because I have a job, but I am far from what I would call middle class. All the people that I remember selling the shirts too never struck me as only being “middle class”. They were Memphians that found a shirt that spoke to them. No one who owns one of those shirts were forced into it and had them stapled to their bodies. They decided that the shirt meant something enough to them for them to buy the shirts.
My rant got derailed at the station and I caught myself rambling there for a bit. I am glad that people like the shirts. I am glad that people hate the shirts. Memphis has its good parts, but its bad parts are the ones that we see now and are the ones that I have had in my face over the last 11 years of living here.
DonnieD on 10.18.2010 at 12:03 pm.
Daniel:A parody of violence is still just a parody.
Great observation!
Daniel:Would you be suggesting that people who don’t understand parody are reason enough for these shirts to be unsavory?
I’ m not suggesting that at all.Those of us who wear them know what’s up.I think they’re blunt, and to the point. Gun’s are used to protect, and serve. Also to rob, and kill.Why not use it to voice an opinion. It looks like it is working,To have caused all of this blathering. I don’t find it unsavory(morally offensive) at all.
For the people who don’t understand parody….
A parody (pronounced /ˈpærədiː/; also called send-up, spoof or lampoon), in contemporary usage, is a work created to mock, comment on, or make fun at an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation. As the literary theorist Linda Hutcheon (2000: 7) puts it, “parody … is imitation, not always at the expense of the parodied text.” Another critic, Simon Dentith (2000: 9), defines parody as “any cultural practice which provides a relatively polemical allusive imitation of another cultural production or practice.” Often, the most satisfying element of a good parody is seeing others mistake it for the genuine article.
Parody may be found in music, art or culture, including literature, music (although “parody” in music has an earlier, somewhat different meaning than for other art forms), animation, gaming and cinema.
George on 10.18.2010 at 12:23 pm.
Make that “site” instead of “sight” for those reading my above rant.
Daniel on 10.18.2010 at 12:34 pm.
@DonnieD – my question was directed at the original blogpost. But I like your point as well.
I own, shall we say, more than one of these shirts. It is a joke. People either laugh and say it’s awesome, or they don’t get it, and then a dialogue is started. Sure, we live in a violent city. But so do lots of other folks, some of whose elected leaders choose to hide that fact, regardless of NIBRS standards.
If Forbes Magazine wants to judge our quality of life based on subjective information, so be it. The gun shirt fires back.
DonnieD on 10.18.2010 at 12:38 pm.
dig that Daniel.
Daniel on 10.18.2010 at 12:54 pm.
Additionally…
Yes, Memphis catches a lot of bad breaks. And we, as Memphians, live with them. We make the best of what we’ve got and it is DEFINITELY a point of pride. Why shouldn’t we be able to express ourselves in reaction to those conditions? Suggesting that we do otherwise – or do so in another fashion – is censorship, plain and simple. I think we can ALL agree that censorship is a bad thing.
Jen on 10.18.2010 at 1:08 pm.
George, let me give you The Economist’s definition of middle class: having a reasonable amount of discretionary income, so that they do not live from hand to mouth as the poor do, and defined it as beginning at the point where people have roughly a third of their income left for discretionary spending after paying for basic food and shelter.
So yes, I’d put a good portion of those with the means to spend $20 on a novelty T-shirt into the middle class category. I’m guilty of saying “I’m broke, I’m poor,” etc but the truth is I, and a lot of us take for granted how privileged we are in a city where more than a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line. Which, as has been proven over and over again, is at the root of the crime problem.
And right there is where I start to get cynical. You can take whatever message you want out of the shirt, that’s what art’s about. Protesting an issue by glorifying it or joking about it just doesn’t sit right with me. Sorry. Thanks for the traffic.
Kate on 10.18.2010 at 1:18 pm.
The last time I wore my gun shirt, I wound up having to give a statement to the police about a violent incident that didn’t involve a weapon. The last thing the interviewing officer asked me was, “By the way, where did you get that shirt? It’s awesome!”
If someone who is responsible for protecting and serving us can appreciate the statement, why can’t you?
Also, yes, I am mid-twenties white girl who was raised by upper-middle class parents. I wear skinny jeans and thick rimmed glasses. I like Arcade Fire. You can fairly accuse me of being a hipster. However, next time you try to generalize my entire peer group as being sheltered and unaware, we’ll be keeping an eye out for you while we’re tutoring in inner city schools and helping homeless people with the paperwork to acquire replacement birth certificates so that they can obtain state IDs.
Our lives are not all about us.
Jen on 10.18.2010 at 1:27 pm.
Kate, are you my twin? Seriously, I think you’ve missed my point entirely if you think this is some anti-millennial screed.
Kate on 10.18.2010 at 1:29 pm.
“I understand that’s what the message of this T-shirt is supposed to be, but most of the folks I see wearing it are so insulated from any of the real problems the image represents because, like me, they are young middle-class whites.”
How am I misinterpreting this generalization?
George on 10.18.2010 at 1:31 pm.
Not a problem for the traffic, I appreciate the free advertising. I just wish people would have complained two years ago so I could move into the middle-class, seeing as how I do not fall into that category at the moment. Not hand and mouth, but sometimes mouth to mouth. I will give a discount on the shirt if someone says that got the idea to buy the shirt from this web site. Maybe I can get it down off that lofty cost of $20…
I guess I should clarify one thing about what you said. I have never sold the shirt for more than $10. If someone bought it and then resold if for more, then that is on them. I don’t think $10 is that outrageous, when you compare the prices of a plain shirt at American Apparel. If eating a meal and taking care of your rent and food would be broken by the thought of purchasing one of our shirts, I would have no problem just giving that person the shirt. I have been known to give the shirt off my back to people, yet I would need another shirt, so I wouldn’t offend anyone with my nakedness.
If there is a problem with joking about a serious situation, I would hope that you contact Comedy Central and tell them that they need to take The Daily Show and that other show off the air. Those shows are using jokes, is this a joke forum, as a way to educate and inform people on what is going on around them.
I am very glad you used some cynical commentary, I was getting worried that it was going to get all preachy in here.
Kate on 10.18.2010 at 1:36 pm.
George, I am deeply offended by your nakedness.
Daniel on 10.18.2010 at 1:39 pm.
Jen – For the sake of argument, is not a “blog” essentially a place where you can say whatever you want, however you want to? Your blog doesn’t appear to have any ads and in your Index, it’s made pretty clear that this is just an expression-of-opinion, personal blog. I respect that, as it gives you the freedom to say whatever you want to, however you want to, without worrying about what someone who’s paying you thinks.
That being said, don’t you find that making a post on said blog about how people shouldn’t say what they want to in this way to be hypocritical?
Kate on 10.18.2010 at 1:45 pm.
And as for your latest “dispatch”:
I quote you again.
“most of the folks I see wearing it are so insulated from any of the real problems the image represents because, like me, they are young middle-class whites.”
Please explain how I’m misinterpreting this?
DonnieD on 10.18.2010 at 1:51 pm.
@jen-Ok I get where you’re coming from. I understand the point you’re trying to make, but lets get real.
Poverty isn’t our problem.Lazyness, Gangs, and want to be gang bangers are our major problem here in this city. in this country. Un till we as a society actually stand up, and do something about it, nothing will ever change.
you say 1/4 of our population (here in Memphis) Lives below the poverty line. for some people it’s just that way. which sucks it’s sad, and I truely feel for them.
Now you take the one’s that can help it, but just want to be lazy, and leech off of society.(living below the poverty line). Take that same $20 bucks that some middle class kid, or whoever spent on their Memphis Gun shirt, and buy a box of bulletts with intention on robbing,murdering, or who knows what. Just because it’s easier than getting a job. An yes it is their fault, they can/could prevent it, but simply choose not to.
I guess by the definiton you posted, I am middle class. I still eat ramen noodles, but I get up go to work(not hustle)pay my bills and try to live by societys laws.tossing the white middle class blah blah blah trendy wana be hipster out there is dumb.(to whoever said that)I guess you’re just too damn punk rock for me! after all punk these day’s is nothing more than just a trend. it has ceased to be a lifestyle.
I guess some of us are just fed up, and sick of it all.
i’ m not saying I have all the right answers.Only most of them. An to whoever is in the pic wearing the Memphis gun shirt nice gunz!
DonnieD on 10.18.2010 at 2:03 pm.
btw Geore, I gave my 1st Memphis gun shirt to a guitar player in an all gurl punk band from NY. They loved it. An I got ym 2nd one free. woot.
btw btw I luv you all! No matter what your views, or opinions are! if you click my name here, it will take you to a magical place!! we all should be so lucky..
Jen on 10.18.2010 at 2:08 pm.
Daniel, I’m not saying the shirts should be banned. I just, personally, don’t like the message. I don’t think less of anyone who wears them, even more so now that most of the responses here (except for the guy who told me to take my ass back to Olive Branch? please try harder next time) have been totally reasonable.
Jokes are funny when they’re not about you, and that’s kinda the way I feel about Memphis. I’ve lived here most of my life and I’m fiercely defensive of it.
gggggrrrrr on 10.18.2010 at 2:17 pm.
police officers compliment mine all the time.
@jen, aren’t you from collierville and you try to act like a midtown guru?
Jen on 10.18.2010 at 2:22 pm.
Hardly “try to act like a midtown guru.” Haven’t lived there in years.
nick on 10.18.2010 at 2:35 pm.
i don’t see why anyone gives a fuck.
Man What on 10.18.2010 at 2:38 pm.
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Nathan on 10.18.2010 at 2:58 pm.
Dear Jen,
You like Belle and Sebastian. If you were serious about your civic pride, you’d bore out your eardrums with the nearest power tool.
That is all.
Sincerely,
Nathan
CreMike on 10.18.2010 at 6:19 pm.
“This city catches a lot of bad breaks. High unemployment. Foreclosures. High crime rate. Blight. Corruption. Racism. A spot at the top of every “Worst” list imaginable”
You’re complaining about the way people misrepresent memphis, yet you start your essay off with a list of horrible things about memphis. See how I picked up on the irony? Wouldn’t it make more sense to raise even a little awareness about those aforementioned real problems, than to criticize a fairly benign fashion statement? One that in and of itself raises those issues for conversation? Or how about a blog criticizing the fact that forbes failed to mention some of the great aspects of living in this city? Dont just attack people that are actually participating in our local culture.
Jen on 10.18.2010 at 6:50 pm.
Thanks for the advice. I’ve actually discussed social and political issues here at length several times, but none of those posts have attracted as much attention as the horde who’s shown up today to defend a T-shirt. Now that’s ironic.
And on that note, I’m closing comments on this post. I’ve defended my opinion enough today.